After 100 years, the memories live on

This week he becomes a centurion.

He was born August 8, 1913 and although a paralysed leg has reduced his mobility, there’s nothing wrong with his memory – not that too many people are around who could argue with him over events in the early part of the last century.

Bert is known throughout Yorkshire as a showman, both of cattle and sheep, a farmer and a man who had an eye for the ladies.

When the rural world has lost three major characters in the past month – Leonard Abel, Willie Houseman and Robin Screeton – positive tales are heartening.

“My father was a tenant on what was Swinton Estate’s largest farm, Nutwith Cote, just outside Masham and I always wanted to be in farming. We had dairy cows, Highland cattle, Wensleydale and Masham sheep when the Masham was the main breed in the country.

“The Masham Sheep Sale was the biggest of its kind with over 50,000 sheep on sale.

“They would arrive by drovers from miles around and some would have taken a week to get there. Dealers would come and buy to take down south.

“I remember Colin Peat from Peterborough would put what he’d bought on to the train in Masham station. They needed two engines to pull nearly a mile long load of trucks packed with sheep.

“One of the most interesting developments at the moment is that the Masham is building its way back a bit as a breed. People have discovered that the Mule doesn’t last as long as the Masham, which of course any Masham breeder could have told you immediately.”

Bert’s showing career started when he was just 10, but not with either sheep or cattle.

“I had bought this bantam cock from a Mr Hutchinson, a tailor in Masham. I kept seeing it on my way home from school and bidding him for it. I think I started at two shillings and ended up giving him half a crown. I took it to Pateley Bridge and won at Nidderdale Show. I sold it there as well – for a pound, so I made a healthy profit!”

He started farming on his own account while at Manor Farm, Low Ellington.

“My father had to give up the tenancy on Nutwith Cote because he couldn’t make it work. His losses were too great. We subsequently moved to Park Farm also on the Swinton Estate and then on to Low Ellington. Unfortunately my mother and father split up which created its own problems.”

Bert took over the farm when he was 23, in 1936 – the year when Jesse Owens won gold in front of Adolf Hitler at the Berlin Olympics. Bert courted Jenny, a farmer’s daughter from Middleham whom he married.

“We had a son, Peter, who is now 74 but Jenny died of pneumonia. She had recovered from having given birth to Peter but we think she must have picked it up from her father who came to visit whilst suffering from a bout of flu. These were the days before penicillin.”

Until last year, Bert still lived at Kirkby Overblow where he moved because of his second wife Marjorie. He had left his beloved Masham for his new love.

They were married 17 years and had four children – Robert, Anne, Jane and Michael – but drifted apart and eventually divorced.

“Marjorie never really took to the country life. She was a Harrogate girl and that’s why I moved closer to the town. We were introduced by my bank manager; you don’t normally expect that kind of service from them do you! Marjorie worked for McDonald’s, a haberdashery in Harrogate, and had been a Land Army girl, but she always preferred town life.”

Bert married a third time, to Olive who died of throat cancer more than 20 years ago.

“Olive took to the agricultural shows and the farming way of life like a duck takes to water. She loved them and we had a wonderful life together.”

Masham Livestock Market closed for the final time in 2006. Bert was there for the first sale in 1921 and the last.

“When I first went to market it was with a pony and trap. There were no motor cars; no aeroplanes; no television; no telephones. I still have my original shares in the market but they can’t sell the place now.”

Horsepower really was that when Bert started out. He relied on horses for many years but recalls his first tractor.

“I bought a second hand Fordson from a firm in Otley. We didn’t have rubber tyres for years. Up until then I had ploughed with horses right through the Second World War. I employed a horseman to look after our four heavy horses. He was a married man with a wife and two children. He lived in the farm cottage rent free, had milk and potatoes free and 37s 6d a week. I also had a pony that I rode thousands of miles and used to go shepherding with.”

Bert also served on the War Agricultural Committee and was a Home Guard sergeant but his showing prowess remains his major claim to fame. He counts his lifetime’s achievement as judging the best of the best.